Watery Grave
by iJustice
Summary: One Shot. Takes place during the current fight with Kisame in the manga. Neji fights to save his precious person, who is on her way to a watery grave. Rated for slight swearing and possible character death, you'll have to read to find that one out .


Yo, I bet you don't know me, if you do… wow. I have written a few other stories, but they flopped. I figured that instead of TRYING to write long stories that require lots of work, time, and attention, I'm going to try and write a few one-shots. This way, I will be able to get some of my thoughts out on paper (so-to-speak), and still be satisfied that I wrote down a complete story. This one shot takes place during the current arc of the manga, with Team Gai + Neji vs. Hoshigake Kisame. My favorite pairing in the series, even though it isn't currently real in the series, is Neji/Tenten, and this new arc with Team Gai gives everyone some new material to work with. Without further adieu, here is the story.

"Text" Talking out loud

'_Text'_ thinking

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Naruto or anything regarding Naruto, only Masashi Kishimoto.

**_WATERY GRAVE_**

'_Damn! I can't breath. Kakashi told me about when he was trapped in this technique, but he didn't say it would drown its captive! This must be a result of the freakish power of the Akatsuki… such a powerful technique…'_ Neji thought as he desperately tried to figure a way out of the mess they were in.

"We'll do this all day until you remember who I am. I've got a score to settle with you, and these brats here might just have to suffer for your ignorance." Kisame called to Gai.

'_This is bad… my hands are injured and I don't have my team backing me up now. Hnnn, on the plus side, this shark man now doesn't have the use of his sword, but I have no idea how good he is in Taijutsu or Genjutsu, although he seems extremely proficient in Water based Ninjutsu. For now, I've got to find a way to free my team; they only have a short supply of air to work with…'_ Gai thought, but quickly returned his focus on the battle when Kisame did a little hop, then plunged down into the water below him, leaving his replications unguarded.

Kisame quickly swam towards his discarded Samehada that lay on the ground under the water not too far from him. After retrieving it, he hefted the blade onto his right shoulder and swam at very fast speeds towards Gai.

The huge sword, which looked very much like a sharks' fin was coming straight at Gai, kicking up meter high water in its wake.

Gai concentrated on Kisame's position until the shark man leapt out of the water, sword swinging; Gai quickly dodged the strike by jumping to another close-by spot of dry land. This cat and mouse game continued for a while as three others were quickly running out of time.

Lee shifted his eyes over to Neji and Tenten, but as expected, they weren't moving. None of them could move as the water compacted their bodies to hold them inside the water prison.

'_If I use some of the Eight Gates, It'll take up a huge amount of chakra… but I don't think I'm going to have much of a choice here, I can only last for another minute or so…' _Lee thought.

Tenten was also running low on air. _'Oh no, I can't break out of this!'_ she thought, starting to panic. _'I can't move so I can't use any techniques! There's got to be a way out of here. But even if I get out of here, that guy is so strong. He didn't even flinch at out attacks! Oh no, I'm getting low on air, I can't last much longer. Please help me Neji!'_ She thought as she started to shake in her panicked state. She shifted her eyes to her left and found herself staring straight into Neji's very concerned eyes.

'_Damn! Tenten doesn't look like she can last any longer. I can't let her die like this…! The only way to get out of here is to expel enough chakra to blow open this bubble, but the replication holding it might not break. I don't have long, I have to do this now or Tenten might not make it, and I can't let that happen!'_

Neji focused for a few seconds before pushing as much chakra out of his body as possible. Normally, it wasn't advised for even a Hyuuga to push chakra out at this rate, but he had no other choice.

The Kisame clone holding Neji's bubble noticed what Neji was doing and frowned, knowing that the Hyuuga brat's plan was going to work, but he poured as much chakra into the sphere as possible, trying to somehow stop him from escaping. The bubble contorted and shaked as chakra quickly filled the bubble until it couldn't take any more pressure and blow apart.

With his Byakugan, Neji could see Lee's bubble steaming, getting to the point where the water turned red. Lee's eyes were wider than normal and his skin was darkened by the extreme chakra output. After opening the 5th gate, Lee was able to break out of his bubble only a few seconds after Neji's escape.

Both of the Kisame clones backed away a few steps before starting hand seals. Neji and Lee didn't have time to check on Tenten as they were about to be attacked by massive water dragons that came out of the water only meters in front of them.

Lee, being the more offensive-based of the two, charged the dragon head on with his blazing power and with a powerful punch, and a second of struggling, broke through the middle of the water blast. As Lee sped towards the Clone at a breakneck speed, the clone quickly called out a technique; **"Water release, Water Shield Technique!"** he called as water shot up in 4 walls that came together, sealing Kisame inside. Lee quickly changed course and sped right to the top of the shield, where it was unguarded, only to find… or _not_ find the clone! He turned around as he felt movement behind him only to come face to face with the clone, which shot up out of the water at him. Lee sent a punch at the clone, but he blocked it. Then a kick, but Kisame raised his knee and stopped that too. Lee used his right hand, which was still seized by the clone's left hand, and pulled it towards him, effectively dragging Kisame towards him and then sent a mighty punch with his left hand and struck the clone right in the forehead, making it burst into water.

"**Water Release, Heat Burst Technique!"** Screamed the Kisame clone holding Tenten. The Water from Lee's clone turned red from the intense heat, and then shot towards Lee, who was not prepared for the hit. The water quickly compacted onto lee's face, making him wraith in pain, not able to shout from the water holding his face.

Lee hit the water hard and struggled a few seconds under the water, but then fell unconscious from the extreme heat, sinking lower and lower until his body hit the bottom.

The water dragon was speeding at Neji fast, and Neji didn't have time to deal with this guy, he had to do this quick if he had any chance of saving Tenten before she drowned.

"**Hakkeshou Kaiten!"** (Divination Whirl)

Neji's technique created a large water spout that sucked up the dragon into its large rotating vacuum, dispelling it after a few seconds. Without wasting any time, Neji quickly put on a burst of speed to get behind his opponent, and then assumed the stance for the Hyuuga's signature attack.

"**Hakke, Rokujuu Yonshou!** (1)!" The clone didn't even have time to finish his seals so he quickly whipped around to see Neji's blur start hammering away at its chakra points.

"2 hands! 4 hands! 8 hands! 16 hands! 32 hands! 64 hands!" Neji shouted as he was able to hit all of his opponent's tenketsu. The clone burst into water and was no more.

'_Ok, now that I got that clone out of the way, I have to help Tenten.' _Neji thought as he quickly turned to the Kisame holding Tenten's bubble. What he saw made his heart sink…

Tenten's mouth was slightly open, her body having just instinctively tried to gulp in any air available, while she stared at Neji, her eyes slowly closing.

'_Neji-kun…'_ Tenten thought in a soft voice as she slowly faded away. Her tears were coming slowly as they mixed with the water that was killing her.

"**TENTEN!"**

He could tell that she had held on for as long as she could, but it wasn't long enough. She was about to die and Neji only had a few seconds to do anything about it.

Neji burst forward; throwing all caution to the wind, the only thing that entered his mind was that he couldn't lose Tenten. Again pushing all of his Chakra into speeding him up, Neji plowed his hands through the clone with unrelenting force.

The bubble didn't break.

Neji was really starting to panic now.

Then with his Byakugan he noticed _another_ clone underneath the water, under the bubble. At some point after the initial creation of the clones, the one holding Tenten's bubble had created another clone to throw them off… it worked. Neji aimed his left palm at the clone. **"Hakke, Kuushou!"** (Divination Move, Vacuum Palm)

The Technique sent a massive invisible blast of chakra splashing violently into the water like a torpedo, blowing the clone up before it could even think about defending.

Finally, with no chakra supporting it, the bubble melted away. Neji caught Tenten in his arms as her head lolled back from unconsciousness. He quickly jumped over to a dry patch of land and set her down.

He tilted her chin up and breathed air into her as her chest rose from the new air. He then put his hands on her chest over her heart and started doing CPR (2).

'_C'mon Tenten breath! Please dammit breath. Don't die on me, please don't die… you can't leave me like this!'_ Neji furiously thought, almost as if he was trying to will her heart to restart with his thoughts.

This continued for several minutes. Neji refused to give up. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks as more time passed and Tenten still didn't breathe. Another few tries and his usually rock solid and calm façade was completely broken. Sobs racked his body as he was finally coming to the realization that this girl was not coming back to him.

After about 10 minutes of trying to revive her, Neji gave one final attempt, pouring all of his heart and soul into this last try to save her life...

_**COUGH COUGH COUGH**_

Neji backed away slightly as Tenten shook, coughing up all of the water that was resting in her lungs.

'… _Thank you God… thank you for not taking her from me…'_

Tenten finally coughed up all of the water, and started sobbing from her near death experience.

Neji crawled beside her and pulled her up into his chest, hugging her gently. "It's ok, shhhhh, you're ok now, I promise I won't let anything like that ever happen to you again. It's ok. Calm down." Neji whispered in a soft caring voice as he continued to console her. Tears of joy trickled down Neji's face as he slowly rocked back and forth with Tenten in his arms.

After a minute, Tenten had finally calmed down a bit.

"Tenten, I love you. I'm so sorry that I couldn't protect you… I'd die for you in an instant, I promise I won't let anything ever happen to you again."

"I love you too Neji-kun… I love you too." She said as she reveled in the safe feeling of Neji's warm embrace.

END

(1) (I can't remember the exact translation, but it's something like: Divine Move: 64 Hands of Divination. Hakke means Divination or Divination Move I think, Rokujuu is 64, and I can guess that Yonshou means hands and something else. )Besides, it sounds better in Japanese anyway

(2) (I don't know exactly how CPR is done; only what I've seen here and there, but I think my description is fairly accurate).

So, how'd ya like it? Yeah, it doesn't really complete the whole battle with Gai and the real Kisame, but that wasn't the focus of the story. Most people are currently assuming Gai will beat Kisame on his own in the manga, so you can assume that as well for this story, so that it can have somewhat of an ending for that situation.

YES. I killed off Rock Lee. Even though he is one of my all-time favorite characters in the show, I needed a way to actually get to the part with Neji/Tenten. I started getting into the Lee/Clone fight when I re-read the story up to that point and realized that this story was turning out to be a more general fic with more Lee than Neji/Tenten.

I might make an alternate version of this where Lee make it through, and then make a sequel out of one of them. I have an idea already, which involves Neji/Tenten going into the heart of the Akatsuki Lair after this fight and somehow fighting the clones of the Akatsuki (since that is their original mission anyways). But I'll get to that later.

For now, please R/R. Constructive criticism is welcome, as I know my writing technique is lacking, but please resist from flat-out flaming, as that is just plain immature. Thanks, see you later.


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